Review: ‘Ride’

A road comedy from the producers of "House Party," "Ride" offsets its predictable storyline with a few genuinely funny bits of dialogue and some earnest performances. Propelled by the popular artists on its rap and hip hop soundtrack, "Ride" should score with young urban audiences, even if crossover and international prospects are slight. Ancillary cable and video outlook is solid.

A road comedy from the producers of “House Party,” “Ride” offsets its predictable storyline with a few genuinely funny bits of dialogue and some earnest performances. Propelled by the popular artists on its rap and hip hop soundtrack, “Ride” should score with young urban audiences, even if crossover and international prospects are slight. Ancillary cable and video outlook is solid.

Story finds New Yorker Leta (Melissa De Sousa), an aspiring director just out of film school, accepting her first job as an assistant to musicvideo helmer Bleau Kelly (MTV’s Downtown Julie Brown). Assembling a group of young street talents for an upcoming video to be shot in Florida, Leta makes her first trip to Harlem and finds more than she bargained for.

The trip has barely begun when some unexpected problems arise: Their chartered ride to Miami turns out to be a foul smelling, run down jalopy of a bus that hasn’t had an oil change since the Johnson administration. Worse, a couple of gangstas named Peaches (The Lady of Rage) and Bird (Dartanyan Edmonds) are out to get Geronimo, guns in hand.

On the trip to Florida, the passengers get acquainted. Between bits of bathroom humor, they bond and break up; some make cat calls while others cat-fight. Much of this takes place with a disarming, self reflexive awareness of popular culture that pervades the dialogue. Advising an unruly passenger to cooperate with others, his friend asks, “Didn’t you learn anything from the Million Man March?”